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Who Does the Gag Rule Harm Most? People of Color, LGBTQ People, and People in Rural Areas

Who Does the Gag Rule Harm Most?

People of Color, LGBTQ People, and People in Rural Areas

Since day one, the Trump-Pence administration has aggressively targeted the health, rights, and bodily autonomy of people of color, LGBTQ people, people with low incomes, and women. The gag rule is a continuation of these attacks.

Because of racism, homophobia, transphobia, and other systemic barriers that contribute to income inequality, people of color, LGBTQ people, and people in rural areas make up a large proportion of people with low incomes who rely on Title X to access health care services.

The gag rule isn’t an isolated attack — it’s just a new tactic to deny health care to those who need it the most.

For people of color, the right to bodily autonomy and quality health care has been consistently under attack in this country — leading to huge disparities in sexual and reproductive health outcomes between women of color and white women.

Communities need more access to health care, not less.

Dismantling Title X limits health care options even further and worsens the massive inequity that already exists in this country.

The majority of patients in the Title X program identify as people of color, Hispanic, or Latino.

21% identify as Black or African American.

33% identify as Hispanic or Latino.

Transgender People:

The gag rule would put affordable health care out of reach for even more trans people. Already, nearly half of transgender people say they’ve delayed or forgone getting health care because they couldn’t afford it.

The gag rule is designed to block access to preventive care at Planned Parenthood health centers, which serves 41% of the 4 million patients — or more than 1.6 million people — who get care through the Title X program.

If it goes into effect, the gag rule would do 3 things:

“Gag” health care providers in the Title X health care program by making it illegal for them to tell their patients how and where they can access abortion safely and legally.

Prevent patients from getting full and accurate information about all of their options. Planned Parenthood won’t withhold critical information from our patients because of our commitment to ethical patient care

Add new restrictions specifically designed to block patients from coming to Planned Parenthood.

This is a gag rule. The Trump-Pence administration’s rule would make it illegal for doctors, nurses, hospitals, community health centers, and any other providers in the Title X program to tell patients how they can safely and legally access abortion. That’s the very definition of a gag rule — and the American Medical Association agrees.

No. There are nearly 4,000 Title X-funded health care providers in the country. The gag rule prohibits every single one of those providers — doctors, nurses, hospitals, and community health centers alike — from telling patients how they can safely and legally access abortion. It also removes the guarantee that you get full and accurate information about your health from your doctor.

The gag rule is designed to keep health care providers like Planned Parenthood from serving patients. While Planned Parenthood health centers make up just 13 percent of Title X centers, they serve 41% of the 4 million patients who get care through the program.

We’ll do everything we can to fight for our patients and make sure all people have access to the full range of reproductive health care services.

In many counties, Planned Parenthood health centers are the only places that provide uninsured people or people with low incomes the reproductive care they need, including IUDs, the birth control shot, and more. Community health centers themselves say there’s no way they could fill the gap.

Under the gag rule, access to health care for millions of people is threatened. We’ll do everything we can to fight for our patients and make sure all people have access to the full range of reproductive health care.

How Can I Help Stop Trump’s Gag Rule?

Add your name to our open letter to save more than 4 million people who rely on Title X health centers from the Trump-Pence administration’s dangerous gag rule.